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Different Ways of Dressing Pigs Feet and Ears

A dish of boiled pigs feet and ears dressed with vinegar, salt, butter, and mustard.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Vinegar and mustard are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,067 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Different Ways of Dressing Pigs Feet and Ears

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Clean the pigs feet and ears carefully.

  2. Soak them for several hours.

  3. Boil the pigs feet and ears until tender.

  4. Remove them and set aside.

Make the dressing

  1. Boil vinegar with a little coarse sea salt and some of the cooking water.

  2. Let the mixture cool.

  3. Pour the cooled mixture over the feet and ears.

  4. Dry the feet and ears.

Cut, fry and serve

  1. Cut the feet in half.

  2. Slice the ears.

  3. Fry the pieces.

  4. Serve with butter, mustard, and vinegar.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

  1. Vinegar + mustardtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together14,067 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Butter + mustardtop 22% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,003 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  3. Vinegar + buttertop 23% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together13,513 recipes

    Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, pear).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Pigs feet
Provide gelatinous connective tissue that becomes tender with long boiling and gives body to the dish.
Pigs ears
Provide cartilage that softens during boiling, giving a tender, chewy texture when sliced.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that sharpens the flavour of the rich meat and balances the fat.
Butter
Adds fat and richness to serve alongside the fried pieces.

The step that matters

Fry the pieces. The boiled meat is already cooked and tender, so frying should be brief and hot enough to brown the surface without drying it out. Dried pieces brown better because surface moisture would otherwise steam rather than crisp.

Swap the mustard

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (vinegar, butter):

  1. Mustardthe original
  2. Shallotfits about as well
  3. Onionfits about as well
  4. Cucumberfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against vinegar, butter. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.

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